Sue Fowler – The Bridal Department

Simon: How was it dealing with … I mean these days, I don’t know how true this is but there’s this sort of ‘bridezilla’ tag put on people. I don’t even know if that’s a thing anymore, but what were people like? They must have been sort of excited to be getting married and …

Sue: Yes, I think more … I don’t think we ever had a bad one. Some of them could be stuck up and so stuck up they thought they were (laughs) better than everybody else, do you know what I mean? I never encompassed anybody lie that ‘cos I didn’t have a lot to do with the Bridal really, but if they were short staffed or somebody was ill or whatever, anybody could step in to most things ‘cos the Shoes were quite … I was the ‘Shoe Queen’ (laughs).

Simon: This is one thing that’s been said is that when sort of helping the Bride’s mother pick outfits that the shoes would be sometimes taken away and dyed.

Sue: Dyed, yeah.

Simon: Can you remember that?

Sue: Mrs Barrow would dye them. She dyed them all and gloves and anything that needed dying she’d do.

Simon: So, that would be a white shoe that then got dyed to match the dress or …

Sue: Yes, a lot of evening dresses too had shoes dyed to match.

Simon: And that was something that was included in the price or was that an extra or ..?

Sue: I think a bit was added on but probably not as much as it actually took. Actually, she was very clever, very, very clever. As I say it was Jill Moody as well, she was there but she was not quite so involved when I was involved with it.